Guinness chocolate cupcake filled with espresso ganache and topped with a vanilla cream cheese frosting. Cupcake and frosting recipe adapted from this recipe and ganache adapted from this basic ganache recipe.

Here’s one way to use your leftover St. Patrick’s Day corned beef – corned beef hash for breakfast. Cube potatoes and fry in a small amount of oil. When almost cooked through and starting to brown add cubed red bell pepper, onion, corned beef and cook together with garlic, salt, and pepper until peppers and onions are soft. Garnish with parsley and top with an egg. Enjoy.

One of our favorite local restaurants serves the best polenta I have ever tasted – creamy, rich, and pretty much just amazing. And while I’m sure that copious amounts of cream and butter have something to do with this, I think we finally discovered the secret to cooking really decadent polenta. A fellow blogger mentioned to me once that if you cook it twice to three times as long as the directions call for you get a much creamier consistency. In following this advice and reading up more online we came up with this really simple recipe for delicious polenta that almost rivals our favorite restaurant.

To try this method for yourself follow these three steps:

1. Add 1 cup polenta to 4 cups cold water and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.
2. Cover, turn heat down to a very low simmer and cook for 45 minutes to an hour – do not stir.
3. Add any fats you wish to use at the end (butter, milk, cheese) and season (salt, pepper, herbs) to taste.